Voyage Across the Stars (39 page)

“They yelled at him to stop,” Lissea said, running her palm a few centimeters above the surface of the dais. “No one threatened him. He was a Doormann, after all, no matter what he might have done. He looked back and called something. There was a crackling or perhaps roaring in the air, so no one could hear the words.”

“One of the guards thought Lendell said, ‘You’ll understand in a moment,’” Lucas said. “But he wasn’t sure.”

“Lendell closed the capsule over himself,” Lissea said. “It was split vertically in halves, and there was nothing, or at least very little inside it. But when it closed, everything on the platform vanished.”

“Was there a sound?” Ned asked. “A pop, an implosion?”

Lissea turned and shrugged. “Nobody heard it,” she said. “Nobody would have heard it with the noise as loud as they said it was.”

“That was the transformers,” Lucas said. “One of the staff from the normal R&D facility was summoned to turn them off. It turned out that Lendell had routed all the generating capacity of the
planetary
grid to his equipment for his final experiment. The spire itself was the only building on Telaria to have mains power until the transformers were disconnected.”

“I thought. . .” Ned said, “. . . that Lendell fled with something. From what you say, he simply spent the money, wasted it. He didn’t take it with him to wherever he went.”

“My father thinks that the money wasn’t wholly wasted,” said Lucas, “if we find and can duplicate the capsule. Lendell’s research was the bulk of the sunk costs. The incremental expense of building and operating the device might prove practical for certain purposes if in fact it did instantly transport Lendell to Pancahte.”

Lissea nodded slowly, though Ned wasn’t sure that it was a gesture of agreement. “Rumors came back, years after the event, that Lendell Doormann had landed on Pancahte and was living there. His siblings were still in control of the company. They’d just managed to rebuild from the financial damage Lendell had done Doormann Trading. They forbade any public mention of his name.”

“They said Lendell was insane,” Lucas said. “They were right, of course.”

“There was never any direct trade between Telaria and Pancahte,” Lissea said. “Pancahte is nearly thirty Transit hours away.” Her figure, by tradition, ignored the set-up time which, depending on circumstances and the available computing power, increased elapsed time by up to three orders of magnitude.

“And it was beyond the Sole Solution,” Lucas said. “A generation ago, that closed. At any rate, there’s been no contact with Pancahte for at least that long.”

Under normal circumstances, there was a practically infinite number of routes by which to reach any point from any other point through Transit space. There were a few anomalies. The most extreme of these was the Sole Solution, which was just that: a single point in the sidereal universe through which a vessel had to pass in order to reach certain other destinations. Pancahte was one of the worlds in that twisted gut of spacetime, the Pocket.

“Ah, Captain Doormann?” Ned asked. He didn’t know how to address the person he hoped to serve under. It was very little consolation that, judging from the varieties of ‘sir,’ ‘ma’am,’ and ‘Lissea,’ nobody else in the expedition was sure either.

“Yes, Via, go ahead,” she snapped. “
Captain Doormann” was a bad choice.

“What is it you came to the laboratory to learn, sir?” Ned said.

“What have you learned here, Slade?” she countered. “Anything at all?”

“I learned something about Lendell Doormann,” Ned said. He didn’t know what she wanted to hear, so he told her the truth. “I learned that he was very sure of himself, and that he knew something. But I’m not at all sure he was right about what he thought he knew.”

“He was insane!” Lucas repeated, as if the statement had any relevance to the subject under discussion.

Lissea smiled speculatively at Ned. “Do you think we should be going to Pancahte, Slade?” she asked.

“You should, sir,” he replied. “Because that’s how you’ll get the place here that you ought to have.”

He smiled back. Something in his expression surprised both his companions. “And I should,” he continued, “because I volunteered to do just that.”

Lissea barked a laugh. “Let’s get back to the office,” she said as she strode toward Ned and the doorway. “I’ll tell Warson to run you through our tests.”

Because of the omnidirectional lighting, she seemed a beautiful hologram rather than flesh as she approached. “If you pass them, Slade,” she said, “you can call me Lissea.”

Male twins in gray battledress walked toward the warehouse converted into a gym and target range as Ned and Toll Warson left it. The strangers were in their thirties, but Ned had first guessed they were considerably younger. They were slightly built, with fine blond hair and complexions of pinkish good health.

“Got a newbie there, Toll?” one of them called cheerfully. There was a scar across his temple, barely visible through the pale hair. Close up, neither of the men was quite as boyishly open as the image he obviously chose to project.

“He’s passed the physical, anyway,” Warson said. “Not a terrible score, either.” He grinned and added, “He could give points to Cuh’nel Lordling, for one.”

“I’m not long out of the Academy,” Ned said, not sorry for the implied praise. “And, ah, Master Lordling has a few years on me as well.”

“Captain Doormann seems to be going for experience,” said one of the twins. Ned didn’t know enough to guess whether or not there was a comment beneath the surface of the words.

Ned was taking deep but controlled breaths. Warson’s run-through had been brutally complete. It was nothing Ned wasn’t used to, though when the veteran had activated a series of pop-up targets while Ned rappelled, Ned had almost broken his neck.

He’d gotten two of the four targets with his submachine gun. “Them others would’ve toasted your ass, kid,” Warson said with a chuckle. “Either get better, or don’t get into a spot like that without backup. Right?”

“Yessir.”

“Louis”—said Warson, gesturing to the twin with the hidden scar—“and Eugene Boxall. They’re from Wimbledon.”

“Ah,” Ned said, giving the Boxalls his sharper attention.

“Yep,” said Louis, “that’s us.”

Except that it
wasn’t
Louis who finished the statement; it was his brother Eugene. The twins had traded places instantaneously and without any motion Ned could observe. Alternatively, the keloid on Louis’ scalp had vanished and an identical scar had appeared across his brother’s temple.

“Wimbledon teleports,” Eugene said. “The future of the human race in two extraordinarily handsome packages.”

“Well, on a good day, two,” Louis said.
And they’d switched back again.
“Though I think
my
profile is a little more regally superior.”

The twins were flushed and sweating beneath their grins, though they kept the strain out of their voices.

“They’re the best,” Toll Warson said with personal pride.

“So we are,” Eugene agreed, his tone still light but with a dead-serious under layer to the words. “The best teleports on Wimbledon, the best in the universe.”

Wimbledon was a perfectly normal world, lighted by a K-type sun through a moderately dense atmosphere. Ambient radiation on the surface was lower than that of Earth and well beneath the norm of the planets humans had settled during the expansion.

For no reason anyone could explain, a significant proportion of children born in the Wimbledon Colony were able to teleport. The talent wouldn’t make buses obsolete: thirty centimeters was a good jump, and fifteen meters was a remarkable one; but very few walls are more than thirty centimeters thick. Teleportation had its uses in military as well as civilian life

“They tested out all right, too,” Warson said. “Most ways. If one of them starts shooting, though, I suggest you stand in front of the target.”

“We’re lulling you into a false sense of security,” Louis scoffed.

He fingered the fabric of Ned’s khaki coveralls, a pair he’d left the patches on. “Hammer’s Slammers, eh?” Louis said.

“I’m a reserve ensign in the Frisian Defense Forces,” Ned said. “The Slammers were formally dissolved after Colonel Hammer returned home and became president. They, ah . . . There’s still a social organization of that name.”

“And your name?” asked Eugene.

“Sorry,” Ned said. He offered his hand. He was embarrassed. He hadn’t wanted to butt into a discussion among veterans. “I’m Edward Slade. Ned.”

“Slade?” said Louis, shaking Ned’s hand in turn. “You wouldn’t have been on Crater?”

“That was my Uncle Don,” Ned said.

“There was a Slade got across the Kingston Gorge,” Eugene explained to Toll Warson, “to call in fire missions on the Corwinite positions. They’d wanted a cousin of ours to jump it, but it was twelve
klicks.”

“Even the highlands of Crater are muggy,” Louis said. “You can’t live down in the valleys without an environmental suit, and that would have showed up like a turd on the breakfast table to Corwin’s sensors.”

“Uncle Don said that he’d have sweat his bones out on Crater,” Ned said, “except the air was so saturated that just breathing replaced your fluid loss.”

Don Slade talked frequently about the things he’d seen—climates, geography, life forms. He didn’t talk about the things he’d been doing against those exotic backgrounds, though. At least not to his nephew.

“Let’s get you back to the office, kid,” Warson said. “I got a date in town in an hour, if I can get somebody to advance me a little money.”

“Glad to have you aboard, Slade,” Eugene said as the brothers entered the gym.

“I’m not aboard yet,” Ned called over his shoulder.

“Tsk,” said Warson. “Worried ’cause Lordling doesn’t like you? Don’t be. Tadziki’s worth two of him.”

“Well, it’s the captain’s decision,” Ned murmured, trying to avoid getting his hopes up.

The road between the converted warehouse and the expedition office was concrete, but the expansion joints and cracks in the slabs sprouted clumps of dense vegetation. The foliage was dark green with brownish veins. It seemed lusher than that of plants growing in the unkempt grounds to either side.

“To tell the truth,” Warson said, “I sometimes think Tadziki’s worth two of most folks. He doesn’t know the same stuff as the rest of us. But he knows his stuff.”

Ned glanced at his companion. It would be very easy to discount Toll Warson as being an extremely competent thug. Ned wondered how many people had died over the years because they made that misestimate.

They entered the office. Tadziki sat at his desk, saying to the big man bent over a document, “You may have to wait more than an hour for the captain, Master Jones.”

“Blood and martyrs!” Toll Warson shouted. “What in
hell
are you doing here?”

“Signing up,” said the stranger as he turned. “Via, I should’ve known you’d be here, squirmed into some cushy wormhole, I suppose.”

He grinned at Tadziki. “I don’t guess I can be Jones anymore, huh?” he said. Despite the nonchalant tone, there was an edge of concern in his voice.

“You can be anybody you please, Master Warson,” the adjutant replied. “But the authorities on Telaria aren’t looking for you.”

Ned backed into a corner, staying out of the way. Toll Warson turned to him and said, “This is my brother Deke, kid. Haven’t seen him in—Via, we’re both getting old, Deke.”

“Edward Slade, sir,” Ned said. He held himself at attention. “Ned.”

“Don’t ‘sir’ me, Slade,” Deke Warson grumbled. He was a centimeter shorter than Toll and perhaps a year or two younger. Kinship showed in the brothers’ eyes rather than in their faces.

Deke looked at Toll and raised an eyebrow.

“His uncle,” Toll said. “Remember Sangre Christi?”

“I remember being glad I got out with my ass in one piece,” Deke replied. “I still think that was doing pretty good.”

“Tadziki?” Toll said. “There’s going to be a problem if I take Deke off for a drink and to catch up with things?”

“No problem with his application,” Tadziki said. “He was an invitee, though I don’t think the courier ever caught up with him.”

“I been keeping a low profile,” Deke muttered. “There was a little trouble after Stanway, too.”

“If the two of you get drunk and tear up the center of Landfall City,” the adjutant continued, “then you better hope they don’t jug you for longer than three days. That’s when we do the test lift—”

He nodded out the open door toward the
Swift.
Workmen were beginning to dismantle the external supports.

“—and if that goes right, it’s off to Pancahte twelve hours later.”

The brothers left the office arm in arm. Ned expected them to collide with both jambs of the narrow doorway, but they separated like a dance team, with Toll preceding.

Deke turned and offered Tadziki a loose salute. It could have been read as mocking, but Ned didn’t think it was. There were soldiers—warriors, really—whose distaste for authority was so ingrained that it was difficult for them to offer respect even when they knew it was due.

“I, ah . . .” Ned said. “Ah, should I wait for the captain, sir?”

“Tadziki’ll do fine, Ned,” the adjutant said, leaning back in his chair to stretch. “And you don’t have to wait unless you want to.”

“I suppose she won’t make a decision about a place for me until Toll gives her a formal report that I passed?” Ned said. He hadn’t been able to relax more than to an at-ease posture even now that he was alone with Tadziki in the office.

Tadziki laughed. “Sit down, curse it, you make me tired to watch you!” he said. “And as for a report—if Toll Warson didn’t think you were safe backing him up, he’d have told you to get your ass off-planet in the next sixty minutes. If you were smart, you’d have known he meant it.”

“Oh, I’m smart enough not to think Toll’s bluffing if he says something . . .” Ned said as he lowered himself into the visitors’ chair. “I, ah—”

He met Tadziki’s eyes. “It’s down to her decision, then?” he said.

Tadziki smiled. “She made her decision when she sent you off with Toll. Via, kid, nobody thought one of Hammer’s boys couldn’t handle the gym. Ned.”